Normal is the Watchword
by seedyapartment
Summary: Supernatural & Veronica Mars crossover. Sam meets new friends at Hearst College and leaves the huntin' life behind. Predictably, it catches up with him.


**Normal is the Watchword**  
a tale from Hearst College  
PG  
Supernatural/Veronica Mars  
Sam and Logan and Veronica and Dean 

Sam misses Dean, because that's just how it always is. Even when Dean's around, he misses him, wants more of him; it's like this burning in his gut that he can't get rid of. He can't exorcize it, no amount of holy water is ever going to help him, but it wouldn't matter if it would, because Sam's out of all that now. When he thinks things like that, things about Dean, and things about hunting, all his thoughts are incoherent and panicked.

When Sam goes to college, he figures he'll have lots of distractions. He's counting on it, and it doesn't disappoint, which is the first sign that his new life at Hearst college isn't going to be anything like the past.

The Dean of Students calls him into his office on the first day, before he's even gotten to his room, and looks at him apologetically. At first, Sam thinks that maybe they're going to revoke his acceptance. He struggles to remember that this is Sam's new life, so bad things don't happen like that. Nothing can touch him here.

And once again, relief is a new feeling when the dean announces, with a somewhat pained look on his face, that Sam's new roommate was going to be Logan Echolls. The dean's got this look that's just bracing itself for the worst, and Sam wonders why, and also if he's announcing everyone's room assignments to them this way.

"Um... alright?" Sam tries, with a little half-smile. The dean coughs politely, and shifts in his seat.

"Logan _Echolls_." he tries again, and Sam shakes his head. "Aaron Echoll's son."

And now Sam feels out of the loop. He feels like he should know what's going on, but he can't quite get there. Being on the road his whole life with no television, radio, or connection to the outside world had stifled his education about world events.

The look on the dean's face is so hopeful, that Sam figures he's better just get it over with. "I don't... I don't know who that is."

The dean smiles sadly, a smile that Sam has seen a lot over the years, and sets about telling him exactly who Aaron Echolls is. By the time he's finished, Sam sits there with his mouth hanging open. He's seen vampires, werewolves, succubbi, zombies, ghosts the sucked your soul out through your mouth, and he's fought them all. And yet, sitting here in the office, listening to a man tell him a story about a kid who had everything, Sam thinks that maybe tonight he's going to have nightmares about bridges, biker gangs, and pretty girls named Lilly. 

Sam arrives at his room first, and it's empty and bare. It feels just a little bit like home, and it's just comforting enough that he drops his duffle to the floor and sits on the mattress. _Another room, Sammy,_ he hears Dean's voice say, _another night._ "Get out of my head." he mutters, to Dean, who's not really there, to nobody, to himself.

"Oh, joy of joys," says a voice from the door, and when he looks up he sees a lanky kid with dancing eyes and a smirk like he already owns the place. "First day in, and I've already got a crazy person for a roommate."

The kid swaggers in, followed by a man in a uniform, who is carrying two suitcases. He flops down on the other bed, waving a hand. "Just drop that on the floor, and bring the rest up."

It turns out that 'the rest' is quite a few suitcases and bags, along with some cushy-looking furniture, and the guy wastes no time before throwing the old wooden stuff out the door.

"Much better," he decides, and then turns to Sam again. "What did you say your name was?"

"Uh, it's Sam." Sam offers his hand, and the guy shakes it forcefully, smirking.

"Logan Echolls. I'm sure you know all about me. But, hey, don't believe everything you see on _Tinseltown Diaries._"

"Tinsel-what?" Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. Clearly, Logan thinks everyone knows who he is. And Sam thinks that based on what the dean has told him, maybe everyone should.

Logan narrows his eyes, and Sam wonders if he's hard to get along with. "Don't play dumb with me, it's cool. I'm famous. I'm sure your greatest regret is that my father is dead and you can't get an autograph."

"I don't... I don't want an autograph." Sam insists, raising an eyebrow at the furniture that was being carried in.

For a moment, Logan looks as if he doesn't know what to say. From the few moments he's spent with the cocky, loud kid, he figures it's probably something that doesn't happen very often. Dean always says that Sam had a gift for reading people, and as Sam stood there watching as disbelief, acceptance, and finally relief washed over Logan's face, he really kinda wishes he didn't.

"Did they send you here as a bodyguard? Because man, you look like you've been in a few fights in your time." It wasn't cruel sarcasm, just the friendly kind, and as Logan walked back across to unzip one of his large suitcases, he smiled.

"Can't be too careful," he sing-songed jauntily, "Veronica will look you up for me."

"Veronica?" Sam asked, puzzled.

Logan grinned, "Veronica. That's the one." 

Sam is absolutely unused to the benefits that come with having Logan Echolls for a roommate. He thinks, sometimes, that maybe it should be someone else who would appreciate the beautiful furniture and all the other things that come with free money and no reservations. But when Logan picks up the bill for every single pizza night, and every single drinking binge, that's when Sam feels like he's won the lottery. Logan, it would appear, is just as big of a deal that everyone makes him, because he's got this endless supply of money and no conscience in sight about spending every drop.

And Logan takes Sam under his wing, because, as Logan has insisted, Sam'll "get eaten alive out here" without him.

Logan shows him the joys of alcohol, and lets him drive, both of which Dean would never do.

By the time they're in the middle of second year, Sam's memories that involve him and Dean in motel rooms, and him and Dean and his dad preparing for another fight, training, battles... all those memories fade into the back of his mind. Dean hasn't called, and he hasn't called Dean, and he prays to a god he doesn't really believe in every night that Dean's still alive somewhere, but he's always too afraid to check.

And Logan stops talking about Lilly, and his father, and Duncan, who sounds like a complete asshole, from what he's heard, and Logan tells Sam that Veronica laughs now like she never used to do.

And they make new memories, to replace the ones that they're pushing away, because that makes it easier. Strip-poker on Tuesdays, when Veronica always wins (Veronica, who Sam is now well aquainted with, is Logan's girlfriend). Logan getting his ass-kicked at Paddy-O's Pub that time, before Sam came to his rescue, and both of them running back to campus as fast as they can while Logan insists that it's a good thing his roommate is secretly a powerhouse. Laughing until he couldn't breathe anymore... he never did that with Dean, and he doesn't think Logan ever did it with Duncan. New memories that are simple. 

Veronica is a private-detective, which is such precarious territory that at first, Sam wants nothing to do with it. He's pretty sure that his new-Sam life shouldn't involve private detectives: he's trying to be normal, right, and it's not a normal person thing. It's been pretty clear to him for a while now that Logan is nowhere near normal, and eventually, he's forces his new aspirations to be normal away and decides that being friends with Veronica and Logan is much better.

The first time Veronica and Logan take Sam on a stakeout, he's startled that they don't have weapons.

"Weapons?" Veronica muses, shooting Logan a glance. "Well, we've got pepper spray. And a taser. But mostly this is just recon."

"But don't you need..."

"Hey, Sam, if it makes you feel any better, Logan's got a gun."

"But what if there's a..." A what? A vampire? A lady in white? Possessed scarecrow? Sam's not sure he wants to deal with this discussion now, so he clamps his mouth shut just in time. Veronica stares at him for a long moment.

They're sitting in her car; it's easier to blend in with the LeBaron than it is with the bright yellow XTerra.

"Do you... I mean, do you have a book?"

Veronica and Logan both stare at him. Logan nudges her, and exaggerates a whisper. "I told you, he spent a lot of time growing up in _the south._" Sam rolls his eyes, and punches Logan softly in the shoulder, ignoring the way his lips curl up into a pout as he mouths the word ow.

"I mean, a journal. Like, to write things in. Facts, and evidence and..." his father's book flashes before his eyes.

"Ah," Veronica breathes, smiling cheekily. Sam thinks that maybe she and Echolls are more 'perfect for each other' than the polar opposites they usually claim to be. "Yes, we've got something like that, Gilligan. It's called an Ibook."

She pulls a sleek computer out of her messenger bag. 

And Sam's been lying to himself. Because of course he remembers Dean. He misses him too, just as much as he knows Logan misses Lilly.

Lying is easier. After a few years, he gets really good at it. 

Sam always knew that one of these days, Dean would get what was coming to him. If the thought that Veronica and Dean would someday meet had crossed his mind at all, he wouldn't have been one bit surprised to see his older brother limp through his college room door, shouting obscenities at Veronica, who was currently helping him walk.

Sam could imagine the scenario in his head; lord knows he knew Dean well enough. It probably involved a wolf-whistle or two, and perhaps a comment about her fine ass. And from what he knows about Veronica, Sam can conclude, before they even tell him, that Veronica has tasered him. And that he probably deserved it.

"Motherfuck, Sam," Dean grits out when Veronica dumps him unceremoniously onto the bed, "what the hell kind of people have you been meeting down here?"

Sam stares at his brother some more. Dean. It's Dean; he still looks the same. A little more tired, a little more beat up, but the same Dean, crooked half-smile and a swagger that Sam notices even through the limp. He brings his eyes up to meet Sam's, and Sam feels like he's been punched in the gut.

Sam hadn't left to get away from Dean. He'd left to get away from the life; to get away from the hunting, to have something normal. To give himself _a chance_. But Dean stares up at him, and says "hey, Sammie. You never call", and Sam can tell that the desperation he sees in his eyes is an attempt to make it better. To heal wounds. Because they're there whether Sam will admit to them or not.

He looks away, at Veronica, who has taken a seat on Logan's bed an has been eyeing them curiously. She shrugs when Sam's gaze meets her's. "I didn't know he was your brother." She says it, but Sam knows it wouldn't have mattered if she had. 

The night before Sam left, their dad went out and got drunk. This surprised them both. He never did anything that would slow him down; make him dumb and weak. This was the only indication Sam got that his dad would be sad to see him go.

With Dean, it was a little more obvious.

"You're abandoning us, Sam." he spat, not looking up from the floor, his voice even. Hard. Dark, just like it always was.

"I'm not _abandoning_ you, you asshole." Sam shot back. He hated the guilt trips, but not enough to take off and be alone in the last few hours he was going to get to spend with his brother. His best friend...

Sitting in silence on the motel bed with Dean, Sam didn't wonder if he was doing the right thing. That had never been the question for him. No, the guilt Sam felt lay directly in the knowledge that he was leaving Dean behind.  
"I'm gonna miss you, Dean." Sam was sincere, and maybe it caught Dean off-guard, because he looked up for a second, before shaking it off.

On the day Sam left, Dean wouldn't look at him, and their Dad wasn't even home. Sam loaded his things into the taxi on his own. 

Logan comes home, and is automatically protective. Not of Veronica, which is most likely because she's got that handy taser of hers. No, when Logan walks into the room and is introduced to Dean, the hero-complex (the one that Sam had only heard about in hilarious, drunkenly-told stories) is focused entirely on Sam.

It's weird, because the same thing happens with Dean towards Logan.

"Roommate, huh?" Dean narrows his eyes, ignoring the hand that Logan holds out to him. Sam sighs, as Logan's _fuck you, then_ smirk shows itself.

He sits in a chair on his side of the room, his long legs pulled under him. Logan knows snarky; it's his calling. "Long-lost brother, I presume? nice of you to finally drop by."

"Looks like you've got a nice set-up here... it must suck to be a poor little rich boy..."

"Almost a year, and you couldn't even come visit your brother. He missed you, you know? Wouldn't say anything to me about it, would ya, Sammie? But he missed you. Would yell for you in the night..."

Sam blushes. "Logan, it's alright, you don't have to..."

And Dean's scowl falters, and just for a moment his eyes flick towards Sam.

For a long moment, Sam thinks that maybe Deans going to tell him about how Sam left _them_. How Sam never called. How Sam... but he doesn't.

"Don't assume you know anything about me, you cocky, selfish, rich little prick. Or about Sam." Dean's got his feathered ruffled, and only Logan Echolls could do it so thoroughly in only a few sentences. Sam recognizes the look Dean gets right before he punches somebody. He steps forward and puts a hand on Dean's shoulder.

"Dean, don't please, Logan's just..."

And he doesn't know which person he could more successfully hold back, but he thinks he knows both of them pretty well, and that they both have a passionate streak that Sam doesn't think he can get in the middle of. He's not sure which one of them he's supposed to stick by, but he knows they're both sticking by him. It's an odd sensation, being pulled in two directions.

"Logan's just leaving." Veronica decides, having jumped to her feet a few moments earlier. She looks pointedly in Logan's direction.

Logan's smile grows wider, "no, sugarpuss, I don't think I am."

"Logan." Veronica's voice is cold steel, Logan tears his eyes away from Dean's. "Now."

Logan considers defying her for all of two seconds, before he gets up, blowing Dean a kiss as he leaves the room.

Sam watches him go, dreading the moment when he's going to have to look at Dean. He's going to have to say things, to explain.

"They sure stuck you with an asshole of a roommate, Sammie." Dean breaks the silence, shooting daggers with his eyes in the direction of the door.

"What are you doing here?" Sam asks, ignoring the dig at Logan, and biting back all the other things he wants to say. Like that Logan's been there for Sam. Like that Sam's been having nightmares. Like that no matter how bad anything gets, he's not sorry he left.

"I'm investigating a haunting." Dean says evenly, and now it's shop talk, and they're both on common ground.

Considering he's been out of the business for quite a while now, Sam's surprised at how easy it is for him to sit on the bed and ask, "hostile?"

Dean shakes his head. "Not that I can tell. No deaths. People have just been seeing her around."

"A her, then? Have you looked up..."

"I didn't have to; guy who called me knew who she was. She was an ex-girlfriend of his. Name like a flower or something..."

"If she's not hostile, what does he want you to do?"

"Apparently, she can't move on. Unfinished business, you know how it is." Dean shrugs, glancing around the room. At Sam's closet, which is now half full. At his computer, which Logan bought him for Christmas. The room is lived in, and Sam figures that it's what makes Dean uncomfortable. "He's a tough-guy." Dean continues, "drives a motorcycle. Goes by some phony nickname... sleazy. He really dug this Lilly girl."  
Sam's ears perk up. "Lilly?"

Dean nods. "She was murdered... it was a big deal, I guess, around here? I heard they caught the bastard. Some highbrow actor..."

Sam closes his eyes. Lilly Kane. Logan's Lilly. Veronica's Lilly. Sam can almost see his beautiful new life flying out the door that Logan had left open behind him. "Oh fuck."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "You've heard of her?"

Sam sighs, crossing the room and digging into the dresser Logan keeps his photo albums in. "You could say that," Sam opens to the first page, and the picture of Logan with his arms wrapped around a smiling, happy Lilly. Directly underneath is a picture of Veronica clinging to her best friend's neck, with Logan standing to the side and laughing.

Dean's eyes widen. "Well," he says, "small world." 

Logan's sigh when Dean asks him if he's been seeing Lilly around lately is one of ultimate relief. He nods, and Sam stares.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks, and Logan shrugs. "I didn't think you would believe me. Was I to just assume that you'd been a ghostbuster prior to your enrollment here?"

"I'm... I'm sorry I didn't tell you, man, I didn't think..."

"I guess we're both liars, then." Logan smirks, and they leave it at that. 

Dean motions for Sam to go around back, so Sam listens. He's only been with Dean for a few days and already he's falling back into old habits. He comforts himself with the thought that Dean's been doing this longer now, that Sam is out of practice, and that it makes sense to follow his lead.

He walks around the back of the huge, abandoned Kane house when Dean disappears off the front door.

The walkway along the side of the mansion opens up into the wide back-yard, with a pool and a tennis court. The Kane's, Logan had filled him in, had been the richest of the rich. Jake Kane had invented streaming video, and though that hadn't mean anything to Sam then, he'd learned.

"Well, well. We finally meet, Sammie," a voice singsongs from his right, and he spins around to see the lithe, transparent figure of Lilly Kane lounging in a white plastic pool chair.

She looks exactly like she looks in all Logan's pictures, but she's got this nasty red gash on her forehead that she somehow manages to work so that it's not making her any less attractive. It hits Sam, then, that Logan's dad did this. His father.

Sam takes a few steps back as Lilly smiles at him. "Urrgh, don't be scared of me. It's getting old, seriously." She looks him up and down, smirking appreciatively.

"Lilly," Sam says, carefully. He's sure if he's more scared of the fact that he's speaking to a ghost, or of the person in the stories he's heard. Logan's sexier ones, Veronica's fun ones... they're all personified in the girl who's currently grinning up at him.

"If only I were alive... Logan's been holding out on me. He didn't say you were so pretty" she muses, gazing at him with her doe-eyes, "but, hey. Let's not dwell, alright? Let's talk business."

"Maybe you should get Logan for this, I don't think I..." Sam trails off, but Lilly is persistent.

"Now, now, don't put yourself down. I've got things I need to discuss with you, sweetheart."

"With... me?" He doesn't quite understand why, but his experience dictates that when a ghost has something to say to you, you listen.

"Logan needs you, Sam. That's what they tell me, anyway."

"That's what who tells you..."

"Look, here's the thing. He, like, needs something to do. Something to care about. I guess what I'm trying to say is that he needs to know that his life means something." She looks pointedly at him, and stands up from the chair. "Something more than sex and money and alcohol."

Sam opens his mouth to say something, anything, like, what is he supposed to do about that, but Lilly shrugs and stops him.

"Yeah, I don't get it either, but hey. Apparently there's more than that, and Logan needs to know it."

"Look, Lilly, I..."

"Yeah, I know all about it, Sam. I like, know about you, and Dean, and your dad, and you mother. Who says hi, by the way." she pauses, "But that's not my job. My job is Logan."  
And Sam watches Lilly roll her eyes, "I'm, like, doomed, you know. Who knew that screwing Aaron Echolls would get me into so much trouble? Anyway, I screwed up, and I hurt Logan, and I've gotta fix it."

"What am I supposed to do about it?" Sam blurts, suddenly, and he's sick of it. Sick of Lilly's rambles, sick of the job already, sick of Dean coming back and messing up his new, perfect life.

"Figure it out." Lilly shrugs, and suddenly, she's gone.

Sam's not really sure why he shakes his head when Dean comes around the side of the house and asks if he's found anything. Sam's gotten really, really good at lying. 

Logan helps him carry his things out to the Impala, insisting that Sam's gonna need a computer because they weren't usually provided in dingy motel rooms.

"So you're going with your brother, then. You sure this is what you wanna do?" Logan asks, but he knows Sam's already made up his mind.

"Family is family, Logan. No matter what they do to you." As Sam says the words, he watches Logan's features darken, and he wonders if that was the right thing to say.

"Depends on the family, I guess." Logan says finally, grinning from ear-to-ear, and this is familiar. This grin, and this laughing, and Sam knows he's gonna miss him.

"You ever need anything... money, a place to hide... look me up." Logan says, turning around with a jaunty wave. Sam shouts after him that he will, but he knows it's not the truth.

Logan's more like Dean than he'll ever know, but Sam's got Dean now.

And sure, Logan might need him. But abandoning is what Sam does best.

He wonders, as Dean comes out and sinks into the car after him, waving in the direction of Logan and Veronica and mouthing "call me" in her direction, how many towns he'll get through before Lilly Kane catches up with him.

Notes:  
♥ I wish I was more skilled at character development. In any case, this only scratches the surface. A surface which I wish I had the talent to dig my fingernails into and pull and scratch until I find all the dirt, but alas, I'll leave that for someone more talented and eloquent than me.  
♥ Parts of this I love, parts I don't love as much, but either way, it was all a blast to write.  
♥ I wanted there to be slash here, but it just wasn't happening. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.  
♥ There is another tale from Hearst coming from me, already half written and waiting to see the surface. It may or may not include Bobby Drake and Troy Vandergraff. wiggles eyebrows


End file.
